Shane Mosley- Antonio Margarito, Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez and Joan Guzman-Humberto Soto – some great fights, right? Well, as of now, because of the ‘Cold War’ that still lingers between Top Rank and Golden Boy Promotions, they are nothing more than pipe dreams.
Bouts to be talked about, but unfortunately, nothing more.
Bob Arum, Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya, with their animus towards each other and their respective promotional firms, are waging a battle where nobody wins, but boxing and its fans ultimately lose.
And unlike Nas and Jay-Z or Tom and Jerry, rivals who formed unions, it doesn’t look like these two entities will find common ground in the near future. As of now, they make the Hatfields and McCoys look downright neighborly.
This past fall, there was a tug-of-war for the services of the Filipino superstar, Pacquiao, in which Pacquiao would be intercepted by De La Hoya himself at LAX as he arrived to begin preparations for his rubbermatch with Erik Morales this past November. It set off perhaps the biggest battle (of which there has been many) between the two companies. Arum would claim that his bout agreement with ‘the Pac Man’ – who will seemingly sign anything when in need of a quick cash infusion – stipulated that he was prohibited from signing any other contracts. Golden Boy, of course, disagreed, and felt it had struck a debilitating blow to Top Rank in procuring the services of another superstar for their stable.
During the week of his third hook-up with Morales, it was rumored that Pacquiao had signed yet another contract with Arum and that he was attempting to give back his signing bonus money back to Golden Boy, who summarily refused it. After his third round destruction of ‘ El Terrible’, it was announced at the post-fight press conference that he and Arum had formed a promotional partnership and that he would be under the Top Rank umbrella.
The race to secure the loyalties of Pacquiao was on. Various personalities would race to the Philippines to make their cases throughout the holiday season. Allegations were thrown around by everyone involved. There were accusations of side deals being made and individuals were allegedly were paid to keep an eye on the mercurial Pacquiao 24/7.
The FBI and KGB never had this much espionage.
But eventually, it would be Arum, with a late Christmas-time excursion to the Philippines, who would get the final declaration from Pacquiao that he was with Top Rank.
Which of course, just set off more litigation. Arum would state that he was willing to make a deal with Golden Boy for a Pacquiao-Barrera rematch, while Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy, held the position that Arum was under no power to make such an offer because Pacquiao was their property.
So on March 17th, Barrera would face Juan Manuel Marquez in a match-up that most boxing insiders questioned. Marquez would thoroughly decision Barrera, and Golden Boy had gotten one of their marquee fighters beaten for a lot less than what a Pacquiao rematch would have brought.
Did they cut off their nose to spite Arum’s face?
“Of course they did,” said Arum last Wednesday at the Lb-4-Lb Gym in Hollywood at a media day to promote his April 14th show featuring Pacquiao in San Antonio. “I mean how do you think Barrera feels today, knowing that he had a solid $3 million offer, plus an upside, to fight Manny Pacquiao in mid-April? Instead, Schaefer bulldozed them into the fight with Marquez – a fight that Forum Boxing and Ricardo Maldonado (his former manager) had avoided for years because of the style. He ended up getting beat in the fight, losing his title and making half the money he would’ve got for Pacquiao. Does that make any sense? I don’t think so.
“Now, after this fight, if Manny is successful, which he could be, it’s a tough fight. He’s going back to the Philippines, run for congress. Now, let’s assume he wins that. In the fall, he’d be ready to fight again. We’re not counting out Barrera as a possible opponent.”
But the shine, as of now, is off a Pacquiao-Barrera rematch. Besides, it seems that the ‘Cold War’ has gotten even more frigid.
“You don’t understand,” explained Arum of this rivalry, “Don King and I were battling for years, ever since I can remember. I can’t remember a time, except now, I guess, where King and I haven’t really battled. Yet, we always found a way to make a match. Why? Because I became a boxing guy and so was King. And boxing guys can always find a way to make the matches the fighters want, that the fans want.
“In Golden Boy, who am I dealing with? I’m dealing with a Swiss banker, with that mentality,” he would say of Schaefer. “Remember, Swiss bankers, they come from a long line of people who acted in extraordinary ways that most people don’t. I mean I’ll never forget the Swiss bankers during the second World War, what they did to my people,” said the ‘biggest Jew to come out of Harvard’, in rehashing history.
Every time Arum says ‘Swiss banker’ the disgust in his voice gets more and more apparent. “Now, leopards don’t change their spots,” he adds.
It’s clear that business has gotten personal.
“No,” disagreed Arum. “I got a Swiss banker running Oscars’s business. With King and I it was personal but that didn’t stop us from making a Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight or De La Hoya-Trinidad. Some great, great fights. And once we made those fights, we worked together very well in these fights.”
When apprised of these comments, Schaefer would tell Maxboxing on Sunday afternoon: “Well, you know Arum is Arum. And it’s unfortunate that he says these kinds of things. But they call him ‘the snake’ and this is not just a name you get. You have to earn it and I think he has done everything he can – and continues to do – to earn the nickname ‘the snake’ and if somebody is called a snake, you know what that means.
“I’d rather be a Swiss banker than a snake.”
When asked if the two companies could have at least a working arrangement, he says: “I don’t know, Arum has done a lot of bad things. So I really don’t know.”
And in response to Arum’s claim that Pacquiao will be making more than Barrera and Marquez combined, he answers, “Well, I hope that he’s going to pay Manny and Manny’s going to hold him to the $5 million I’ve been reading about. So that’s all I have to say.”
On Wednesday, after the Los Angeles portion of their press junket had concluded, Arum, while on a limousine to San Diego, would learn that Golden Boy’s injunction to have Pacquiao’s April assignment halted was KO’d in court. His bout with Jorge Solis would go on.
But this matter is far from over from Golden Boy’s perspective.
“Look,” said Schaefer,” the bottom line is Pacquiao signed with us first. No if’s, no buts, nothing. There is no dispute over that. There is no dispute that Pacquiao signed with us first. As a matter of fact, Bob Arum, when it came out a few days after Pacquiao signed with us, he went on the record and so did Todd (duBoef), both of them, went on the record stating – it was with Dan Rafael of ESPN – ‘Well, y’know if Manny Pacquiao signed with Golden Boy that’s just too bad. But we have plenty of other fighters which will keep us busy. We were hoping that he would sign with us. But y’know, good luck to him. Congratulations.’ On the record, OK? So suddenly, somewhere down the road he must’ve changed his mind. Again, coming back to this, ‘Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling the truth.'”
It was discovered in depositions that one of the enticements that lured Pacquiao to Golden Boy was a suitcase filled with money.
“It is very, very surprising. But then again, it’s not surprising; these people will do anything to achieve their purposes. Anything. He’s a SWISS BANKER,” Arum would say with added emphasis. “Remember that. Now, I don’t know if there’s anything illegal in giving a suitcase full of twenty dollar bills that total $250,000 to somebody. I wouldn’t do it, that’s not the way I do business.
“Now, King has been known to give suitcases, but his background was the numbers business. Now, for Oscar De La Hoya, who was going to change the image of boxing, really, what he’s done is replicate some of the worst things that have happened.”
While many questioned Golden Boy for making Barrera face Marquez, it may also be an indictment that Pacquiao, coming off the year he did, is facing Solis on pay-per-view.
“I think he (Arum) said that the fight (Barrera-Marquez) wasn’t that big and so on. But if you have a gate of over a million dollars, $1.3 million, and you have 225,000 pay-per-views, let’s see what he’s going to be able to do with Pacquiao in that fight,” Schaefer would say. “I really hope for Manny Pacquiao that he is going to wake up and going to realize what Arum is doing.”
Which he believes is using ‘the Pac Man’ as a pawn.
“I’ll give you a small, little example,” explained Schaefer, “I was informed that Manny Pacquiao has sent a letter to the WBC stating that he wants to remain as the mandatory challenger to Juan Manuel Marquez. And that he wants to fight Marquez. The same day, the WBC received another letter, from guess who? Bob Arum, saying that he wants and will try and enforce Humberto Soto as the mandatory challenger to Juan Manuel Marquez. So why would Arum go behind Pacquiao’s back and try to do that? I mean, it’s pretty low.
“But then again, that’s the kind of person Arum is, always was and that’s just his character. And this man who is close to 80, he’s not going to change.”
Does there need to be a change of personnel or personalities for the two rivals to start working again?
“Actually, it’s funny, he did step down a few years ago and he installed his stepson, Todd duBoef, as the president of Top Rank,” said Schaefer. “I’m sure a lot of people were looking forward to it and felt it was a good opportunity for Todd to take over Top Rank now. I think it was a good move for Bob to do that. But I guess he must’ve changed his mind as he often does and I guess he proclaimed to the world that now Todd is in charge. It was just another case of, ‘Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling the truth.’ But I really don’t think it’s the right slogan for Arum, it should be: ‘Yesterday I was lying, today I’m still lying.'”
But don’t tell Arum that his show at the Alamodome is not a big one.
“First of all, it’s not a small pay-per-view show,” he would state. “It’s a pay-per-view show that we anticipate will do around 300,000 buys. We dressed it up with Jorge Arce in a tremendous fight with Cristian Mijares, which is an even money fight. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Brian Viloria and Jorge Solis is undefeated. We think it’s going to be a very, very good fight. And I don’t know how you can call it small when the amount of money Manny’s going to make from this fight will be more than Barrera and Marquez collectively made for last Saturday night.”
Top Rank will be distributing this card by themselves, without HBO, who was hesitant to get involved with the on-going litigation. Of course, during past litigation involving Pacquiao, that didn’t involve Golden Boy, that never seemed to stop them before.
“I think it’s probably too late for them to be involved. But they’re not the only one on the street,” Arum said. “I think Showtime may have a different take on it. We’ll see if they want to come in at the last minute. But if not, we’re fully capable of distributing it ourselves.”
It’s doubtful that Arum will get his forecasted projection, but if there is one company that can pull it off, it’s Top Rank. In an age where most other promotional companies have become nothing more than booking agents and/or television packagers, Arum is the last of the old-school, renegade promoters. No other individual in his spot has the gumption – and perhaps the pocketbook and know how – to tell the powers that be to shove it. Need an example? Just go back to last June, when he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger on his own pay-per-show featuring Miguel Cotto to go up against an HBO Pay-Per-View event featuring Bernard Hopkins and Antonio Tarver (which not-so-coincidentally was promoted by Golden Boy Promotions.)
While others hold their tongue at perceived slights, Arum is still full of piss-and-vinegar at age 75. And he still has the zest to wake up every morning and create events and attractions. While his former adversary, King, has tapered off, Arum and his company are as busy as ever. In 2006, they had 51 shows, by far the most in the business.
Golden Boy, buoyed by the leverage of having De La Hoya, the most potent financial stalwart in the industry, has forged a strong partnership with HBO and had a stated goal of changing the structure of the game and moving into the next century with a different blueprint. To them, the Arums and the Kings of the world is one of the key reasons why boxing is in the dire predicament it currently is in.
But while they have assembled an impressive roster of ‘partners’ in Hopkins, Barrera and Shane Mosley, they have never actually developed their own standout from scratch. And outside of when the ‘Golden Boy’ himself performs, they have never had a blockbuster event at the box-office or on pay-per-view.
Arum says he has no problems with competition. However, what he does seem to have a problem with is when a company is essentially propped up by a network which essentially acts as a promoter and has done things to basically expunge his own role in the business. In the past he has called Golden Boy an ‘auxiliary’ for HBO. While he builds fighters, he feels Golden Boy takes them.
What makes this hatred so interesting is the past history between the participants. Arum and De La Hoya made millions together. And even after their initial split in 2000, he would eventually come back to Arum after Golden Boy Promotions was formed (with the help of HBO). But in the midst of this partnership, there always seemed to be an underlying tension between the reunited factions.
The final breaking point was De La Hoya’s knockout loss to Hopkins in 2004, after which De La Hoya and ‘the Executioner’ would form their own alliance, under the nose of Arum, who believed he would be promoting Hopkins from that point on. And then who can forget the tension during the third and final hook-up between Morales and Barrera, where Arum was enraged by Barrera and Co. blowing off the final Los Angeles press conference. He would label the Golden Boy crew as a bunch of ‘amateurs’.
Then after his win on Thanksgiving weekend of 2004, Barrera – after his camp entered the post-fight press conference waving a Golden Boy banner in taunting fashion – would state that his victory proved that Golden Boy was the superior of Top Rank, with those words translated by De La Hoya himself, just a few feet next to a down Arum, who would suddenly explode by screaming at Oscar and asking just who put up the money for this event – which of course, was Arum and his company.
It would be the last real event involving both companies, which is a shame, because not only would we see some great fights, the stakes would only be heightened by the on-going distaste both sides have for each other. The build-up and lead-ins to these events would be as much fun as the fights themselves.
The Snake versus the Swiss Banker.
It would be boxing’s version of the Yankees and Red Sox or Alabama-Auburn. Only much less friendlier.
But it sure beats the ‘Cold War’.
Because in that, there are no winners.
REMATCH
Sources tell Maxboxing that Golden Boy needed around 175,000 buys for Barrera-Marquez to break even; Schaefer has stated that they did around 225,000, so does that cinch a rematch between the two?
“At the end of the day, it depends on what Barrera wants to do,” says Schaefer, who says that September 16th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas has been secured for Marquez, one way or another.” Juan Manuel Marquez and his team made it very clear to me that they are willing to fight the best and if the best fight people want is Barrera – and Barrera feels that he got the shorter end of the stick, then here it is. It’s his opportunity to fight Marquez again and we can certainly do that fight.
“But at the same time, Juan Manuel said, ‘Look, if the WBC wants to enforce the mandatory, which is Manny Pacquiao, then he’ll be more than happy to do that as well. So it really depends on Barrera and the WBC to see what is going to happen. The bottom line is that Marquez is now considered the best and he’s willing to fight any and everyone. For too long he’s been held in the dark and now he’s out. And he showed he can not only be a technical fighter, a boxer, but that he can be a banger too.
“I think it was really a coming out party for Juan Manuel Marquez.”
BYE BYE GOLDEN BOY FOR BARRERA?
So what exactly did Barrera mean when he would tell Larry Merchant right after the fight that it was maybe, “bye-bye Golden Boy.”
“I think when you are in such a close fight and you hear the scores which are so wide, what goes through your mind first is, of course, disappointment and anger and you start to point fingers,” explained Schaefer, of Barrera’s emotions. “And it was similar to situations when Oscar lost against Trinidad and Mosley in those fights which most people felt he should have won. You remember when Oscar said, ‘bye-bye Top Rank,’ bye-bye this and bye-bye that, the investigation and the lawyers would look into it. You remember that? So this is sort of like the same situation.
“You have a tremendous amount of disappointment and anger and frankly I can understand it. I mean, the scores were too wide. And look at the knockdown, which was ruled not a knockdown and it was. And not only did he not get it, he got a point deducted, too. I talked to Barrera the next day on Sunday and he said he wants to think about what he wants to do. If he wants to continue fighting or if he wants to stop at this point or take some time off. Oscar took a year or so off. So maybe he’s going to do that.
“I think he deserves a little breather, he’s such an amazing fighter and he has given us so many amazing fights; let him enjoy his time off with his family and then we’ll see what is going to happen.”
But Schaefer concluded by saying: “The fact is we do have a contract with Barrera, a promotional contract. And so you can not just walk away from that.”
MAY 5TH
This year’s biggest event, which features De La Hoya facing Floyd Mayweather, does not involve the man who was so instrumental in helping build both fighters, Bob Arum.
So what will he and his wife, Lovey, be doing the night of May 5th?
“Well, one thing’s for sure, we aren’t going to be in Vegas,” said Arum, with a chuckle. “The other thing for sure, I think we’re going to be attending the opening of the new hotel in the Bahamas. I am not going to be watching Mayweather-De La Hoya, not that it couldn’t turn out to be a good fight. But I guess my job in that respect is over.
“It’s my fight and I became irrelevant, as Mr. Schaefer would say.”
FINAL FLURRIES
Jesse Feliciano’s upset KO of Delvin Rodriguez is exactly the reason why I love boxing. Anything can happen at anytime….That was a pretty good scrap between Daniel Reyes and Nelson Dieppa (won by Reyes in a close decision) on Telefutura…. Where are all the people who kept saying Mikkel Kessler was going to get battered and exposed by Librado Andrade?…..I’ll have a more detailed report later this week, but I thought Robert Guerrero looked very good in his last bout against Spend Abazi…..I don’t care what anybody says, I’m a fan of ‘Workout’ on Bravo…..I thought John Duddy was outstanding in-studio with Brian Kenny on Friday Night Fights on ESPN2. If you don’t like this guy, you probably don’t like ice cream, as Sparky Anderson once said….I guess even a blind squirrel can get an acorn once in awhile, I hit all four of my Final Four picks with UCLA, Florida, Georgetown and Ohio St….Seeing Georegtown stifle UNC late was reminiscent of the lid they threw around the lid against Kentucky in the 1984 semi-finals in Seattle. For a second I thought Gene Smith, Michael Graham and Horace Broadnax were out there harrassing Tar Heels. ‘Hoya Paranoia’ is alive and well with the sons of Patrick Ewing and John Thompson… Geez, I’m getting old….
